Coaching News
I Don’t Want Your Advice … until I ask for it!
Unsolicited advice or feedback is always for the benefit of the giver, not the receiver. Period. Think about it. How did you react the last time someone gave you unsolicited advice or feedback – in the office or out in the big mean world – that started with “You...
DEI is DOA …and we killed it!
Disclaimer: the opinions expressed here are that of the author. Caution: some of you may agree with them. Some of you may be offended by this. Me saying sorry you’re offended probably won’t make you feel any better. It’s a good bet that you and I have different ideas...
Performance Management in Crazy Times — 1-on-1s, forms and Layoffs
Effectively managing performance today is a bear. It’s tough. And can feel thankless… sometimes even pointless. It’s also one of the most important things we do as senior managers – setting, and managing to, performance expectations. Why, then, do we anguish about it...
Are You Expecting? … and this ain’t about babies
Originally published nearly 40 years ago, What to Expect When You’re Expecting by Heidi Murkoff (now in its fifth edition) is the best-selling book on pregnancy of all time. As a man, I don’t know what’s different about being pregnant now than 40 years ago (and I’m...
Effective Feedback in Today’s Crazy Times
Feedback’s not getting easier, just a damned sight more essential. Tom Peters once described a really unique method of communicating at a client company… he said they talked to each other. Now this was some years ago, so talking may have morphed into various forms...
Team-Based Leader Development: Why together is better…
Educating executives, managers, supervisors and other leaders remains a major concern for companies eager to keep their organizations afloat or even thriving in a challenging economic environment. Frankly, the limiting factor for most organizations continues to be leadership.
Your Job Title is Meaningless! … and it isn’t who you are
2023’s first leadership newsflash: You aren’t what you do! And if that doesn’t surprise you, how about this: Your job title isn’t what you do, either. Have you ever talked to someone who was a little too proud of their job title? Like “I’m the SENIOR Vice President...
Leading in the New Year — Let’s do it right!
It’s December. The current year is almost in the can, finished. Stick a fork in it, it’s done. A new day has dawned. The new year is upon us. Soon, we’ll be discussing how fast January flew by, then Q1. The great hamster wheel of life. Have you made plans? Personal...
Elon Musk, Twitter and Culture
Culture is driven 100% top-down. No matter what BS you hear to the contrary, culture begins – and is perpetuated and maintained – by what occurs at the top of the heap. Any ideas about driving culture “from below” is an amalgam of wishful thinking and consultant...
Quiet Quitting– and more leadership malarkey
Okay, let’s get this out of the way: this “Quiet Quitting” stuff is just a load of crap. Nothing more. Don’t fall for it, thinking you now have some incredibly useful excuse for why people aren’t performing as you think they should. Sorry – no cigar. It’s a made-up...
Who’s In Charge Now? …and who’s going to do all the work?
I have been vexed lately by organizations that have failed to have a succession plan for key leadership positions. Why do we do that to ourselves?? Maybe a better question is “why do we keep doing that to ourselves? It seems to be filed in our playbooks as one of the...
Just listen to me and stop trying to solve my problem!
There’s an old adage that goes: If you’re always solving other people’s problems, you will always be solving other people’s problems. That’s a serious issue for me, and I struggle to stop babysitting other people’s monkeys as part of my own circus. It’s a hard habit...
Teams, Gaggles, Flocks and Org Charts–The first rule of the leadership team is…
Just because we lump a bunch of people together at work and call them a “team,” doesn’t make it so. A group, gaggle, bunch, or flock just requires box similarities on an org chart.
